| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: matter of course of writing to Hermiston and correcting him upon his
private affairs.
And Frank would proceed, sweetly confidential: "I'll give you an idea,
now. He's actually sore about the way that I'm received and he's left
out in the county - actually jealous and sore. I've rallied him and
I've reasoned with him, told him that every one was most kindly inclined
towards him, told him even that I was received merely because I was his
guest. But it's no use. He will neither accept the invitations he
gets, nor stop brooding about the ones where he's left out. What I'm
afraid of is that the wound's ulcerating. He had always one of those
dark, secret, angry natures - a little underhand and plenty of bile -
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: rungs of the ladder down which he felt his way cautiously lest a
broken rung or a misstep should hurl him downward.
As he descended thus slowly, the ladder seemed interminable and
the pit bottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the
bottom that he could not have descended more than fifty feet.
The bottom of the ladder rested on a narrow ledge paved with what
felt like large round stones, but what he knew from experience to
be human skulls. He could not but marvel as to where so many
countless thousands of the things had come from, until he paused
to consider that the infancy of Caspak dated doubtlessly back
into remote ages, far beyond what the outer world considered the
Out of Time's Abyss |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: man--I, who am but an empty babbler,[3] and measurer of the air,[4]
who have to bear besides that most senseless imputation of being poor
--an imputation which, I assure you, Ischomachus, would have reduced
me to the veriest despair, except that the other day I chanced to come
across the horse of Nicias,[5] the foreigner? I saw a crowd of people
in attendance staring, and I listened to a story which some one had to
tell about the animal. So then I stepped up boldly to the groom and
asked him, "Has the horse much wealth?" The fellow looked at me as if
I were hardly in my right mind to put the question, and retorted, "How
can a horse have wealth?" Thereat I dared to lift my eyes from earth,
on learning that after all it is permitted a poor penniless horse to
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: over to his side, had a good look at him, and with-
out saying a word went back to the house. But
from that time they laid out his meals on the kitch-
en table; and at first, Miss Swaffer, all in black and
with an inscrutable face, would come and stand in
the doorway of the living-room to see him make a
big sign of the cross before he fell to. I believe that
from that day, too, Swaffer began to pay him reg-
ular wages.
"I can't follow step by step his development.
He cut his hair short, was seen in the village and
Amy Foster |
